Session 75b: The Horned King

Talsil 14th
Deposing the False King

The Dark Three took their places in the pillow-crammed harem chamber, readying an ambush for the king. After an hour's wait (during which silence rituals were laid, blobs were sent scouting, and optimal positions found), the sounds of feasting in the southern dining hall died down and someone approached from the western hall.

It was the king's second-in-command, a brown, tree-like troll known as the Claw of Tsojcanth. He'd come to inspect Isabella and ensure she was fit for presenting, but when he lifted her off the ground and away from her concealing drapery, he found the vampire was still armored and armed. She stabbed him in the eye and a fight was on, one which saw Renato and the princess suffer minor wounds, and the troll tormented by a fiery likeness of the assassin. The combined wrath of the three ended in the monster's immolation.

Forced to hide yet another body under the pelts and covers, the vampires ran out of time as much heavier footfalls and heavy breathing rose from the southern hall and Rend emerged.

Thoom, THOOM, THOOOOM. The sheer amount of muscle on this blackish-green creature is grotesque, hide like toad skin, warty and glistening with a sticky veneer. His arms are each as thick as tree trunks and his warped claws large enough to throttle a horse's midsection. Draped in a cloak of scalemail, he's armored in a mosaic of plate collected from a hundred challengers or more, and his jeweled mantle is mingled with fingers, bones, tongues, and eyes in various states of rot.

Broad, hunched, his mountainous shoulders culminate in a mishapen head, one half grown upward, with a fiery red eye whose lid couldn't possibly ever cover it, the other sunken down and always squinting yellow. Scraggily black hair clings to his warty, mushed face, wraps around his jagged teeth and jutting tusks, clings to his hooked nose and pointed chin. Upon his warped brow a crown of iron looking a thick band with two-foot high prongs. Simple, and yet somehow, even from looking on it, resonating with an almost subsonic power manifested in an inaudible hum.

He spoke with unusual eloquence, and marked three opponents despite their best efforts to remain concealed. Izzy reaffirmed her dedication to Mara, but Rend offered his patronage instead. There was something off about his comments, his knowledge antiquated, naming Raya instead of Kalinda, for instance. As the witch promised to send him to Hell, the king could only laugh at the limit of her imagination.

Rend proved a daunting opponent with a tremendous serrated fullblade and a magical slew of resistances to elemental damage (due largely to his magic ring). Fire did not readily harm him as it would other trolls, and cold and lightning proved equally futile. Diana drew on every element in the Void seeking means to wound him, eventually settling on a combination of concentrated starlight and gravitational thunder.

If one tried entering Rend's mind, they found something ancient and evil lurking within. Isabella caught a glimpse of a hideous bull head while pitting her will against his, suffering a concussive torment which all but neutralized her. Renato, recognizing the crown as the source of his lover's woe, grabbed for its prongs, drawing the ire of the troll. The assassin managed to avoid the brunt of Rend's retaliation, but when he launched a two-fold psychic attack, the ancient evil of a bull-headed entity known as Baphomet sent him comatose on the floor. Rend followed up by throwing a ton or more of black marble ripped from the floor on top of him.

He might have done much, much worse, but Diana was able to chain the behemoth where he stood with invisible bindings. When at last he broke through, Rend admitted he was not Rend at all, even as the entire chamber trembled and fell under a baleful red light. The Iron Crown began to glow red hot and sink into the troll's head. Isabella was able to wrap her own shadow shackles upon the king, but they didn't last long. Diana, running out of options, called forth the weight of the cosmos, but even then the beast was able to slowly push closer his victim!

Renato eventually found his way back to consciousness and shoved the marble off himself, demanding to know who or what Baphomet was. Isabella recognized the name as a particularly ancient demon lord from the time of the God War, a being of unfettered rage and unstoppable destruction. The darkest clans of minotaurs, giants and ogres still paid him homage, but up until now all texts suggested he was still trapped in the prison plane of Carceri. If a guess had to be wagered, Iggwilv summoned him out, testament to her awesome power, to use for his insight and fury. The Witch Queen was often known to summon even ancient demons to her court as if they were vassals, perhaps accounting for why she no longer ruled. It also dawned on the witch that Baphomet was brother to an even older demon lord, one whose name she now realized was the same as Drelzna's goat-headed tutor: Fraz-Urb'luu...

Though Rend resisted much of their magics, and laid awful hurts on those within his reach, eventually the Three managed to burn, blast and cut away the trollish facade and lure out the true king. The Iron Crown, red hot, planted in Rend's skull, its prongs intertwining and forming two horns which transmuted into massive bull spikes. The troll's body swelled to twenty feet, his feet shriveled to hooves, matted brown fur rose from underneath the warty hide, and pink, swollen flesh dominated a bull-troll face and over-muscled torso. Ungodly liquids spilled from his jagged jaws, seeped from his blazing eyes, glistened off his obscene form. When he spoke, many of the weak-willed-and-speechless slave girls perished at the sound. Only an elf and a dwarf endured the Aspect of Baphomet's soul-shriveling presence, and not well.

Whatever arcane bonds the witch and sorceress were able to lay upon the Aspect were broken in time, for it claimed nothing could hold it forever. Baphomet stampeded toward Renato, beating him into unconsciousness with his clenched fists likes the spiked mauls of giants, before turning and laying unbridled fury upon the frail Diana. Assuring them of their failure, allowing them to witness the fate of all the world, eager to topple the empires above and raise an new Labyrinth, the dead its bricks and mortar as they girdled the world, two of The Dark Three fell knowing hopelessness, fear and agony.

The Shadow Witch of Barovia cowered alone, desperately slapping Renato's cheeks as the shadow of Baphomet slowly fell upon her. She force-fed a rejuvenating vial down the assassin's throat and tried to draw the Aspect away, all the while praying vehemently for her lady's intervention. But Mara could not enter the sanctum of Iggwilv, the whole of the caverns designed to keep in and keep out the extraplanar, as realized in the garbled communing ritual days prior. They were alone.

Renato found his feet and his sword, charging the risen demon lord and gutting him up the middle. But still it endured! As the assassin turned invisible and ducked two of the its blows, it turned on the helpless sorceress and crushed her into the stones. Until he showed himself, she would suffer his cowardice. It didn't look like she could another hit, and Renato, if he dared stand in the open, would likely not survive either.

The hour was late and the circumstances dire. Baphomet was poised to grind the vampires into greasy smears across the ruined harem chamber and assume control of the Caverns, then perhaps the world. Yet in that moment, Isabella found a strength within her like nothing she'd felt before, and unlocked the gates of Cania and Malbolge with sudden fury. Hell-borne storms of ice and fire spewed forth, and Mara, channeled through the princess, manifested as a sultry combination of shadow, heat and steam before the crippled Aspect. She lifted it off the ground by the throat, whispered the venom of her name, and tore it asunder!

All that remained was the Iron Crown, instantly cooled, which clattered loudly in the ruined chamber. Isabella roused Diana, initially unconvinced they'd survived, and the three shared an uncharacteristic moment of genuine affection. They'd endured. Once more, Mara had been their saving grace, a notion which filled the princess with wonder and the sorceress with mild nausea.

Renato approached the two surviving slave girls and listed their options: to stay and be interrogated by the trolls over Rend's death, to try their damnedest to keep up with The Dark Three as they escaped, or to be put out of their misery here and now. The Gloriandeline Atisshon quietly decided on following along, but the dwarf was in a catatonic and trembling state, unable to answer or comprehend anything after the demonic ordeal. Renato sent her mercifully on her way...

When it came to collecting the demonhead, Diana advised caution, but the inquisitive princess was all-too-eager to examine the ancient artifact. As she peered into its dull, reflective sheen, an overwhelming urge struck her. She carefully lifted the crown to her head, but Diana slapped it away angrily. It became quickly apparent, even as she regained her senses, that Isabella was planning to give the crown to Mara. Entirely against such power in the hands of the devil, Diana put her foot down, confronting her best friend and making the witch choose between the crown or her own life! It was a harsh way to handle things, to be sure, and Renato let her know it, but the sorceress was convinced necessary.

She tucked the indestructible artifact into her bag and followed the others out...


Experience: 1,666 xp each (40,842 total)
Claw of Tsojcanth, 1000
The Horned King, 4000
Magic: Rend's Jagged Fullblade, Primordial Ring

Rend's Jagged Fullblade
The blade of this six-foot-long sword is serrated and bloodstained, it's grip well-worn and notched with hundreds of kills.
Level: 17
Price: 65,000 gp
Weapon: Fullblade
Enhancement: +4 attack rolls and damage rolls
Critical: Ongoing 10 damage (save ends)
Property: This weapon scores critical hits on a 19 or 20.

Primordial Ring
This golden band shimmers a different color depending on the element assailing its wearer, and alters their physiology accordingly.
Level: 14
Price: 21,000 gp
Item Slot: Ring
Property: You are treated as an elemental creature as long as the ring is worn.
Power (Daily): Minor Action: Gain resistance 10 variable until the end of the encounter or for 5 minutes. You cannot use this power to resist a damage type to which you have a vulnerability.
* If you’ve reached at least one milestone today, your resistance 10 variable becomes (2/encounter).

Artifact: The Iron Crown (demonhead)
Money: n/a
Loot: n/a


New NPCs
Claw of Tsojcanth (dead): King Rend's second-in-command, who came to inspect Isabella before her audience with his master.

Aspect of Baphomet (defeated): The demon-possessed form of the already daunting troll king Rend. Twenty feet tall, bulging with muscle, with wicked horns and a host of abyssal powers, he nearly wiped The Dark Three from existence, if not for the miraculous channeling of Mara through a desperate Isabella. Though defeated, the spirit of Baphomet lives on in the Iron Crown.

Dwarf Slave (dead): A dwarf slave who did her best to help The Dark Three in the harem chamber, but lost her mind in the presence of Baphomet and was mercifully ended by Renato.

Atisshon: The sole survivor of Rend's harem, a Gloriandeline woman with a dagger, some rags and a head full of bad memories.


New Hooks
Keepers of the Iron Crown: The Dark Three possess a previously-undiscovered demonhead containing the essence of Baphomet, the Horned King, an ancient demon of the God War embodying rage and destruction. It cannot be destroyed and will inevitably possess those who dare to use its power. So what to do with it?